Last July, we were the first to tell you that the Steve Rogers we will see in Avengers: Infinity War will be a man who has changed and left many of the beliefs he once held dear behind him. We saw him leave the shield behind in Captain America: Civil War and told you that the when we see him again, he’d be the MCU version of Nomad, a persona Cap once took in the comics. Here are some key details from our original scoop:

Comic readers will remember an incredibly short-lived run (Captain America #180-184) where Rogers, disillusioned by the revelation of the Secret Empire running America, took off his Captain America costume and donned a caped blue and yellow uniform. While we won’t be seeing an exact duplicate of that costume in Infinity War, Rogers’ costume will pay homage to his time as Nomad. It’s also worth noting that the bearded look, which is Chris Evans‘ preferred look anyway, does resemble Rogers’ time in Dimension Z from Rick Remender’srecent run.

The move towards Nomad is more than a nice nod to the comics. Rogers, as he did in the comics, has become disillusioned with what he has had to sacrifice to do the things he knows he must. The Russos sowed the seeds of this move early in Civil War and Rogers has had a tremendous personal arc over the course of the films in which he has appeared. His decision to become Nomad is representative of him no longer looking to follow orders or even give them, but to simply do what he believes is right.

Over the course of the last few months, Sebastian Stan and Chris Evans have given credence to the idea through some clever autographing and now Joe Russo, co-director of Avengers: Infinity War, has spoken out about Rogers becoming Nomad in an interview with ESPN.

The Russo brothers first got their hands on Rogers in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and have been responsible for the character’s arc ever since. That arc is one that has given us a very different Rogers than the one that came out of the ice after and 80-year nap and as Russo tells it, that’s exactly what they intended:

Our approach to [Steve Rogers] was to deconstruct him, to take him in a different direction. Obviously you can’t deal with a character called Captain America without dealing with the thematics behind that, so we wanted a relevancy to it and we wanted to put him in a position where he was questioning the chain of command.

Fans of the films will recall that Rogers began asking those questions in The Winter Soldier and that his conviction not to sign the Sokovia Accords even though it meant going against the grain led to many of the events of Civil War. Continuing along that arc led Rogers to become a man on the run from the country he loved and will redefine him even more going forward. As for where the Nomad identity fits in to the picture, Russo said:

You’ll see in these Avengers films, he’s on a very specific journey as a character. Some people have suspected that he may be Nomad heading into Avengers 3 and I wouldn’t say that he is exactly Nomad, but he is the spirit of that character.

Capturing the spirit of the character is exactly what the MCU has been all about. While the comics have always freely thrown around code names, the films have sprinkled them in here and there if at all. I don’t remember an instance of Wanda being called “Scarlet Witch” by her teammates and we hear him called Clint more often than “Hawkeye” (although Scott Lang did call him “Arrow Guy”, which is way better). So while we may not hear anyone call Rogers “Nomad”, we’re happy to see Russo confirm our scoop that this is about the character’s arc more than a fancy costume!

Source: Digital Spy